Carl Jung on “H. Rider Haggard.”
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Facebook Group
Those of my readers who know Rider Haggard’s description of “She-who-must-be-obeyed” will surely recall the magical power of this personality.
“She” is a mana-personality, a being full of some occult and bewitching quality (mana), endowed with magical knowledge and power.
All these attributes naturally have their source in the naïve projection of an unconscious self-knowledge which, expressed in less poetic terms, would run somewhat as follows: “I recognize that there is some psychic factor active in me which eludes my conscious will in the most incredible manner.
It can put extraordinary ideas into my head, induce in me unwanted and unwelcome moods and emotions, lead me to astonishing actions for which I can accept no responsibility, upset my relations with other people in a very irritating way, etc.
I feel powerless against this fact and, what is worse, I am in love with it, so that all I can do is marvel,” (Poets often call this the “artistic temperament,” unpoetical folk excuse themselves in other ways) ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 375
Here I would like to refer to the authors already cited. Rider Haggard calls She “Wisdom’s Daughter”; Benoît’s Queen of Atlantis has an excellent library that even contains a lost book of Plato. Helen of Troy, in her reincarnation, is rescued from a Tyrian brothel by the wise Simon Magus and accompanies him on his travels ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 64.
The motif of the anima is developed in its purest and most naive form in Rider Haggard. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1280
Whenever the anima is projected, she immediately surrounds herself with a peculiar historical feeling which Goethe expressed in the words: “In times gone by you were my wife or sister.” Rider Haggard and [Pierre] Benoit had to go back to Greece and Egypt to give expression to this insistent historical feeling . . . ~Barbara Hannah, The Animus: The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women II Page 174
